Are/Were You Fat Because Your Mom Was A Good Cook?

Great question, but in my case, nope.  I got fat because I ate too much.  My mother, Lord love her, was and is a terrrrrible cook.  She regularly uses the smoke detector as a timer, and the house could be burning down, but if the recipe says it stays in the oven an hour, then it's staying in the damn oven for an hour!

Consequently, I grew up thinking McDonald's was a home cooked meal.  

Problem is, as I got older and learned better, I didn't change my eating habits.  So, while my mom certainly contributed to my bad choices in food, she is not responsible for my choice to overeat as an adult....that's all me.

My parents are average cookers. However, we were never told no on the sweets, almost always had dessert everyday, and always filled our plates and had to finish everything on them. As the kids got older, we were put in charge of the dinners. I turned out to be the better cook of the family. We were also never introduced to veggies very much so it turned out no one really likes them today. Meat and starch was our dinners. Fast Food Fridays and Pizza Saturdays.

No balance diet, no small plates. I turned out to be the big kid growing up and was constantly teased. I also had a mom that reminded me throughout my childhood, I was fat and needed to loose weight. My first diet was in the 3rd grade. So if someone asked me when did my addiction to food start....when I was a kid and was always allowed the cookies, cakes, and candy.

Interesting question! While my mom is a decent cook, my bad relationships with food mostly came from a combination of not eating the right things, portion control issues, feeling like I HAVE to clean my plate (are we all seeing a trend w/ that one?? lol) and eating too quickly.

I was about 35 overweight in HS which I lost in my senior year, but didn't start my dangerous climb until moving away from home almost 10 years ago and going to college. I never learned about healthy eating as a kid and so continuing my bad habits, but NOT spending hours everyday after school at some kind of volleyball, golf, basketball, or softball practice allowed it all to catch up with me!

I think it is also tough when you have family members that get offended if you don't eat their food at all or only have a little bit. In my family, you would think that you've personally attacked someone if you don't want to pig out on the food they make - as if rejecting their food is somehow rejecting them as a person. I'm the kind of person that always feels guilty about SOMETHING, so I've eaten plenty of things in my 27 years on this planet that I didn't want to... but that has STOPPED because it doesn't do me any good!!

 

VERY Interesting!  My Mother was probably one of the worlds WORST cooks.  She could only bake chicken (dry it out) and make spaghetti.  Other than that we were left to fend for ourselves so it was a lot of freezer foods and top ramen.  At one point my sister and I ate mashed potatoes every day for lunch.  When I moved in with my Dad he was a meat and potatoes guy, and we had beef or chicken with a potato every night.  When I moved in with my now-husband, I didn't know how to cook and neither did he, so it was fast food for us every night.  After 9 years I was almost 300lbs, but I finally learned to cook. 

I think it has a lot to do with technology.  Humans no longer use physical modes of transportation, most of our jobs are minimally physical, our food is made with technology...  Its lack of physical activity mixed with unhealthy foods and obviously over eating.

Interesting question indeed! I've been overweight since I was about 7, but my mom was never a fantastic cook. She was just okay, not terrible but not super either. She always says now that I'm the one with the cooking ability in the family and unlike most I taught myself pretty much everything I know. We grew up very poor though and being poor she would buy what was cheap- all the processed garbage foods that are awful for you. There were times when we really didn't have money for food and it was literally eating what ever you can come up with. We also had the 'clean your plate' rule, because when you don't have money you really can't afford to be wasteful. My mom even told me once not to waste milk because somewhere a poor baby calf had to give up that milk so I could have it LOL (I was a sensitive child so this literally made me cry so I NEVER wasted food haha) I think it was a combination of poor quality of food (There was always cake, cookies or something like that in the house) and being an overeater from an early age that made me gain weight.

It's a fascinating subject to me, one that I have discussed many times in the past with close friends, that struggle or have struggled in the past with their weight from many different perspectives.  We looked at based on region, family make-up, ethnicity, gender, and of course Socio Economical Status.  Based on the discussion what I discovered for myself is that everything is a factor! Ha!

My mother is and continues to be an amazing cook.  I myself am a very creative, and not to boast, but talented cook.  Growing up we lived in a middle class neighborhood, but we were not middle class income.  There were six of us, and food was a hot commodity in our house.  Everyone looked at each other's plates to see who had more mac& cheese and the bigger piece of pork chop or Salisbury steak.  Vegetables were expensive and didn't last long, so the occasional package of broccoli and cheese was the limit of our exposure, except on special occasions: Homemade Pizza and salad was your annual birthday treat, and the birthday person got more pieces and to pick the toppings!  The quality of the food was high in fat and carbohydrates because that was what we craved ( probably due to stress and low serotonin levels- but we didn't know that!)  All we knew was when you wanted a treat or to feel special the only thing we could afford was a food based reward.  Occasionally when things went really well, and we got a special treat we could get McDonalds.

So of course as we all got older and earned our own money, we "treated" ourselves every day!  No more free milk for me at lunch I am going to Wendy's after school!  Food had too much meaning, and continued until I was an adult to be the only thing you could count on to always  be what you expected, especially when you could make it yourself (ahh control!). 

Long answer for a quick question, but I think that the love my mother (and father) shared with us through food, became the way I loved myself for a long time...  I don't think obesity can come from just one source, it has to be a perfect storm of cir****tances.

I am fat because I chose not to exercise after college, marriage and kids. My mom is a healthy weight and we had baked fish or chicken, broiled/braised beef or pork, 2 veggies a bread and milk at dinner. No pop, no sweetened drinks hardly any processed foods no pop tarts, fast food was like once a month, if that. If you wanted a snack you had fruit, cheese or raw veggies. I was in sports year round and was very active, also walked everywhere in college and then got a desk job in a bad environment which was very depressing and I used to eat to deal with my feelings.

It is an interesting question but one heard over and over. Yes my mother was a great cook as were both my grandmothers. Yes we were expected to clean our plates....but we were also expected to help clean the house inside and out , do our chores on the farm when visiting our grandparents and not spend our days in the house on our butts. At 18 when I moved from home I was 5'8" and weighed 100 to 105lbs..after college 115...when I started my last job at 24 I was 118 (required to weigh in each time I checked in to work). So..five kids in my family...no one with real weight issues. I hated the gym but was always active in my job and didn't use my car to go down the block. Growing up we never ate fast food (never visited a McDonalds till I was in high school) or frozen/packaged "store bought" foods. It wasn't until I became ill, didn't move much, and began to depend more and more on processed foods that my weight took off. When I began to be able to cook again it was one of the few things at that point  I could control and I did so in an unhealthy manner. So.....do I feel it was my parents fault NO! I feel that even as kids we could say no to the seconds, thirds etc. My parents told us to clean our plates because money was short. We dished it up, take responsibility and know your limitations. As was stated before here....with technology we have become more and more sedentary and want the "fast" fix we get by eating out instead of cooking in a healthy manner. We need to stop blaming and take the ultimate responsibility for our weight...I feel it is the only way to combat it completely. BTW I have 4 children ages 15-21. I have limited their unhealthy food consumption and promoted activity. They ride their bikes, walk etc. They play their video games/ watch tv use the computer etc...but there are limits. I have made clear to them and they can see how miserable I have been as an obese person. Just my two cents worth. And Keith good for you for showing your children a healthy way to eat ...hope you are showing them how to make it too.

Heck no! My mom was a TERRIBLE cook, never even really tried. I was fed processed, high calorie, high carb junk all my childhood. Probably some of the reason I was/am fat. All I knew was pre-packaged food. So that's what I ate. All the time. 

My mom was not a good cook. She didn't like to cook. She was okay when she did, but she mostly hated being a housewife and was one of the first to latch onto processed food when it first came out. Now her husband does all the cooking. I got to be obese because my family nagged me about being chunky and I went on a diet before I was done growing and it broke my body. From that point on, I was always hungry. Willpower kept me from being obese right away but my weight gradually crept up and obesity was inevitable.

My thoughts are that everyone wants an easy answer to the problem of obesity and there isn't one. Different people get obese for different reasons. Whatever their reasons, though, most people don't become obese just from having parents who made a lot of good food or made too much of the wrong kinds of food or even from making them clean their plate. You have to have something out of whack in your body to get obese. Because just eating too many donuts or home fries doesn't get you up to 300 pounds. It might get you 20 or even 30 pounds overweight but people whose bodies work probably have built-in mechanisms that limit their weight gain.

I think it's fashionable to blame parents for everything. But, as a parent of kids who are adults (or close), I have found that I'm just not as in charge as society wants me to be. If was, both my kids would be honors students with advance degrees. 

This is what I think we can do as parents:

-teach our kids how to eat healthy

-teach our kids how to be in touch with their own hunger (no micro-management of their food quantities--telling them they couldn't possible be hungry when they say they are or that they have to eat if they say they aren't hungry)

-model healthy eating and physical activity for our kids. (This is the hardest - you can't fake this!)

I know haven't done a good job of teaching my kids what healthy eating is. I came to the VSG too late for them and their dad is still in the throws of obesity and fights me every step of the way in what I do do. BUT neither of my kids are overweight. In fact, one is underweight. That's because I made sure my daughter didn't go on a diet when she got chunky going through puberty (which is what broke my hunger signals) and because I never force them to eat when they say they aren't hungry.

The rest is just luck on my part. I'd love to claim credit for it but I know I didn't do it. Just like my youngest sister grew up with the same approach to food as me and has no weight problem in spite of things my parents did wrong, my kids don't have weight problems in spite of things I did wrong.